Google Interview Prep Cheat Sheet

Download the phone interview cheat sheet here—and read on for tips on filling it out before your next phone interview. Possible Start Date. In a preliminary phone interview, you might be asked when you’d be able to start. Sometimes companies are looking to fill a role as soon as possible, and other times they’re just trying to plan ahead. Coding Interview Cheat-Sheet/ FAAAMNG Preparation/ Smart Code Thinking/ Last Night Coding Interview Guide. Getting a job offer from FAAAMNG (Facebook, Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix & Google) companies is like a dream comes true specially for IT guys working or want to work in the field of software development.

Preparing for technical interviews at FAANG companies takes time and effort given their difficult and challenging processes.

Here's what this article will cover:

This is the last chapter of our The Complete Guide to Google Interview Preparation series. If you keep following our blogs, I hope you are quite clear about how to prepare for a Google interview. Many people may ask if this guide also works for non-Google interviews as well. This is the whole point of this chapter.
The Interview Prep Cheat Sheet: What Hiring Managers Really Want To Know Getting hired is all about inspiring confidence. A look at how to tell the right story about your work experience.
You can use our phone interview cheat sheet to prepare a few key points ahead of time to serve as reminders. We’ve purposely designed it to not have a lot of room for your answers: Boiling things down to a few important words and phrases will remind you of the essentials while allowing you to keep your answers natural and spontaneous.

10 years of relevant work experience, including technical management of software developers and system administrators/architects.
Experience designing and implementing distributed systems.

Preferred qualifications:

12 years of relevant hands-on technical management experience of software developers and systems administrators/architects.
5 years of experience in leading highly-complex, technically-challenging, cross-functional software oriented projects from inception to delivery.
Track record of individual technical achievement.
Excellent C++, Java and/or Python skills

Google Interview Questions

It is important to note that Google, like all other top tech companies, have a number of interview questions that they rotate between. Questions are also frequently removed from the rotation, and replaced with new ones on a regular basis.

The most effective and efficient way to prepare for technical and behavioral interviews at Google is to look for conceptual themes and patterns, rather than trying to identify commonly asked questions.

If you want to ace interviews at the most competitive companies, place emphasis on pattern recognition and building your problem-solving skills. This is the only way to solve problems that you have never seen before and the only way to fully explain your solutions during interviews

To understand interview question patterns, here are some of the most common questions asked at technical interviews

Technical Questions

Demonstrate how to reverse a linked list.
Find the formula to solve an nXn Magic Square problem.
Search a max value in an unsorted array in better than O(n).
Find out the fastest way to locate the largest element in a circular sorted array.
How do you convert a max heap to min heap?
How will you implement three stacks with one array?
Can you design a data package transfer from London to Tokyo?
Can you write code to implement your own hashtable in C++ or Java?
Do you like coding or designing applications?
Given an array of size n, find the majority element. The majority element is the element that appears more than floor(n/2) times. You may assume that the array is non-empty and the majority element always exists in the array.
Given a 2D binary filled with 0’s and 1’s, find the largest rectangle containing all ones and return its area. Bonus if you can solve it in O)n^2) or less.
Given a string A, partition A such that every substring of the partition is a palindrome. Return the minimum cuts needed for a palindrome partitioning of A.
Given a string A and a dictionary of words B, determine if A can be segmented into a space-separated sequence of one or more dictionary words.
Design a messaging service, like Facebook Messenger.
Given two numbers represented as strings, return multiplication of the numbers as a string.
Design a search typeahead (Search autocomplete) system at Google’s scale.
Given numRows, generate the first numRows of Pascal’s triangle. Pascal’s triangle: Generate A[C] in row R, sum up A’[C] and A’[C-1] from previous row R - 1.
Given an array of integers, sort the array into a wave like array and return it. In other words, arrange the elements in a sequence such that a1 >= a2 <= a3='>= a4 </=>
Given 2 non-negative integers m and n, find gcd(m, n). GCD of 2 integers m and n is defined as the greatest integer g such that g is a divisor of both m and n. Both m and n fit in a 32 bit signed integer.

Behavioral Questions

How do you execute a project?
Explain a technical challenge which you overcame.
What is your favorite Google product? How would you improve it?
How would you deal with group conflict?
Explain a situation in which you had to learn something you didn’t know while working on a project.
How do you sort priorities when engaged in multitasking?
Do you prefer earning or learning?
Tell me about a time when you effectively managed your team to achieve a goal. Explain your approach.
Tell me about a time you failed. How did you deal with this situation?
Tell me about a time when you faced a problem that had multiple possible solutions.
How would you deal with a non-cooperative coworker?

Sources:

Google Interview Tips

Here are some handy tips to help you get through interviews at Google.

During the phone screen and onsite interviews, think out loud and speak as clearly as possible while solving a problem. Explain your thought process to the interviewer.
It is important to consider edge cases and test your code, even if it is a simple problem. Not doing so will have a negative impact on your assessment.
If you’re unable to solve a problem right away, slow down, simplify the problem, challenge your assumptions, and keep attempting to solve the problem from many different angles. The interviewer might even give you hints along the way
Don’t be afraid to ask your interviewer clarifying questions about the problem.
Be prepared to share specific examples and stories of what you’ve done or accomplished in your professional career.
Always repeat the question in your own words and clarify the problem requirements. Doing so helps demonstrate your comprehension of the problem.
If time permits, improve your solution to the problem.
Use a whiteboard to draw examples like an example array or binary tree.
Prepare two or three questions to ask the recruiter and each of the interviewers (including technical interviewers) at the end of each round. You can ask multiple interviewers the same question.
For the phone screen round by the recruiter, read up on the role and company ahead of time.

Google Interview Experiences

To understand how it is to interview at Google, we studied first-hand experiences of candidates who received job offers from Google.

From an ex-Google software engineer

“I was given the option to use a laptop if I wanted to, which I did. As a side note, I would highly recommend that if you are given that choice or option, take it. Personally, I think that it’s just far easier to actually write out code on a laptop than it is to do so on a whiteboard and the beauty is that you can actually use both.

That first interview was very interesting...two things stuck out to me that was interesting. The first is that during the sort of introduction of the interview, we chatted about my projects on my resume...Put at the top of your resume the things you are most proud of that you think are going to be the most impressive...the second thing is at the very end, the last lets just say 10 minutes, we had this sort of discussion about parts of the interview.

The second interview went very, very well. I remember that interview was sort of like the interview where it just went well. I knew I was able to come up with a solution immediately able to come up with a pretty optimal solution to optimize on that of that and then optimize it even again on top of that.

The third interview was very similar to the previous one. Maybe a notch lower. I came out thinking I did well.

Just a normal lunch interview. It will have no bearing on your application. The person I had lunch with ended up being on one of my sibling teams at Google once I worked there. Apart from that, nothing special.

Then the fourth interview came along and I vividly remember finding that particular interview very difficult. I remember thinking, “wow, these engineers don’t kid around.” But I also remember coming out of that interview very good and feeling like I had done very well.

What I did in that interview, which I always recommend that other people do is I really treated it as I am with a coworker, we have been given a problem we have to solve together, but I am the one leading. I am the one doing 80-90 percent of the work but I’m sort of trying to have a conversation with this coworker of mine. Here, I am speaking about the interviewer and I’m just going to try to solve this with him...Two people [just] working on a problem together.

Finally, the fifth interview, nothing too special there. It sort of felt similar to the first interview. I came out of it feeling neutral.

Finally, I got the phone call...it was very positive and I’d gotten a hiring decision from the hiring committee.

The final hoop after matching with a team and manager is called the ‘Vp and SVP sign off.’ They have to review your individual packet and sign it off.”
‍

Interview with Divanshu who got into Google, Mountain View

“According to me, all the four interviews had a similar difficulty level. During all the interviews, the difficulty bar was raised slowly as we approached the end of the interview.”

I was required to send all my grade cards after one week of the interview process. Then they reviewed everything and the offer was given. So, I believe that grades were also a factor involved in the selection process.”

Source: Geeksforgeeks.org

Resume Building Tips

Getting through a technical interview at Google begins with a good resume. Only the best and most relevant applications get shortlisted for interviews. It is imperative you present your resume so as to clearly highlight your suitability for the role you apply for.

Introduction Section (Summary/Objective & Technical Skills)

List your most impressive projects first.
Keep your resume length to one-page. Recruiters at Google review hundreds, if not thousands of resumes for each job opening
List programming languages you are well-versed in at the top.

Experience Section

Since you are interviewing for a specific position, highlight only projects and skills that would be most interesting and relevant to the role you are applying for.
Demonstrate to recruiters the impact your work had in your past employment.

General Formatting Pointers

Recruiters will skim your resume before deciding to reject your application or give you a call. This process generally takes less than 10 seconds, so readability is key. Make sure your resume has a consistent layout and uses the right fonts Create clear sections with subheadings..

Consider reaching out to an expert to create a professional and eye-catching resume. Interview Kickstart conducts resume review workshops that can help you refine your resume for better results.

Find our next scheduled resume session on our social media pages. )

Google Interview Preparation - Materials and Tips

Here is a list of materials needed and tips to help prepare for an interview at Google. This is compiled based on inputs from a Software Engineer at Google and a candidate who received an offer from the company.

Pencil and blank paper or a whiteboard and markers
Create a study list of technical topics to cover. .g. 15-day cheat sheet for cracking Google Interview.
Coding preparatory books.
Establish a schedule for studying and preparation. IStudy without interruptions.
Educate yourself on the Google interview process.
During your interview preparation, don’t forget to take a step back and relax. Don’t overwork yourself.

Self-study can take a considerable amount of time with no guarantee of success. We suggest checking out our technical interview prep program for the best and quickest way to prepare for your dream companies.

If you want to know how to crack remote interviews, do check out our Remote Interview Guide

Technical Topics for Google Interviews

For this section, we compiled a list of technical topics we believe you should be well prepared with when you interview at Google. This list is based on inputs from a Software Engineer at Google and Google’s video on how to prepare for an engineering interview.

Coding - be familiar with at least one coding language
Algorithms - understand the complexity behind an algorithm and how to improve or change it
Memorize two good sorting algorithms and their Big-O
Memorize binary search
Graph traversal algorithms (E.g. BFS, DFS, and short path algorithm like Dijkstra’s)
Be well-versed in bit manipulation exercises (working with bitmaps, bit shifting)
Data structures - learn some of the most famous classes of NP complete problems (e.g. the salesman and the nap sack) E.g. hashmap, linked list, stack, queue, and trees (n-ary, trie, heap) and their Big-O complexities

Mathematics - learn discrete and simple math problems like probability theory
Statistics E.g. Powers of 2
Recursion, backtracking, and memorization
Operating Systems - understand processes, threads, concurrency issues, and related topics
Resource allocation
Context switching
System design - questions will test your ability to combine knowledge, theory and judgment in solving a real-world problem
Understand of how the internet operates
Understand the basics of how search works
Object-Oriented Programming terminology e.g. abstraction, inheritance, cohesion, coupling
Understand the collection and math APIs for your preferred programming language

Additional Reading: How to Prepare for a Google Engineering Interview

Average Salaries for Tech Roles at Google

Software Engineers - Location: Mountain View

Approx. $141k/yr (Base Salary) & $90-217k/yr (Base Salary Range)
Total Compensation: Approx. $226,500/yr

Total Compensation Range: $90-480k/year

Engineering Managers - Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Approx. $205k/yr (Base Salary) & $176-240k/yr (Base Salary Range)
Total Compensation: Approx. $405,000/yr

Total Compensation Range: $215-562k/yr

Sources:

Glassdoor Reviews

Google Engineering Manager

According to Glassdoor, 86% engineering managers would recommend working at Google to a friend. 72%of them expressed their approval of Sundar Pichai as the CEO. Working at Google is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars by engineering managers

Google Software Engineer

Google’s software engineers rate the company 4.5 out of 5 stars 90% state they would recommend working at Google to a friend and 91%approve Sundar Pichai as the CEO.

Sources:

Company Culture

According to Glassdoor, Google has an average rating of 4.4 out of 5. 88%of its employees state they would recommend working there to a friend. 93%approve of the current CEO, Sundar Pichai.

According to Comparably.com, Google holds an A+ rating for culture, CEO approval, and compensation. Diversity at Google is rated an ‘A’ and the company ranks in the top 105 of other U.S. companies with over 10,000 employees.

Sources:

We hope you found this Google interview guide valuable. Check out other popular Interview Guides for Microsoft and Netflix.

Develop a structured approach to preparation for technical and behavioral interviews with professional guidance. Check out our programs by signing up for our FREE webinar to learn how you can nail your next technical interview.

PM interviews are really challenging. The questions are difficult, specific to Google, and cover a wide range of topics.

The good news is that the right preparation can make a big difference and help you land a Product Manager job at Google. We have put together the ultimate guide to help you maximize your chances of success.

Here's an overview of what we will cover:

1. Interview process and timeline ↑

What's the Google PM interview process and timeline? The process takes four to eight weeks on average and follows these steps:

Resume, cover letter, referrals
Phone screens (one to two interviews)
On-site interviews (four to six interviews)
Hiring committee recommendation
Senior leader review
Compensation committee recommendation
Senior executive review
You get an offer!

Note that these steps are similar, but not identical, to the process for Google APM interviews.

1.1 What interviews to expect?

First, it's important that you understand the different stages of your PM interview process with Google. In most cases, here are the steps you'll go through:

Resume and cover letter screening
Phone screen with recruiter: one interview
Phone screen with PMs: one to two interviews
On-site: four to six interviews

Phone screens last about 30 minutes and are typically carried out first by a recruiter and then by one or two PMs. The aim of the call is to check that you meet the basic requirements for the position and stand a chance of getting hired. Recruiters tend to ask more behavioral and resume questions, while PMs tend to jump straight into product design, estimation, and strategy questions (more on that below). If Google is really excited about your profile they might send you on-site straight away and skip this screening step.

On-site interviews are the real test. You'll typically spend a full day at a Google office and do two interviews in the morning, then have lunch with a fellow PM and do three interviews in the afternoon. Each interview will last 30 to 45 minutes. Most of the interviewers you meet will be product managers, but occasionally you might also interview with an engineer who will assess your technical skills and ability to communicate with developers.

The interviews are very structured. Each of your interviewers will evaluate you, take copious notes and then file a detailed report. The lunch interview is meant to be your time to ask your questions. Google won't be evaluating you during this time, but we recommend that you behave like if they were.

1.2 What happens behind the scenes

If things go well at your on-site interviews here is what the final steps of the process look like:

Interviewers submit feedback
Hiring committee recommendation
Senior leader review
Compensation committee recommendation
Final executive review
You get an offer

After your on-site, your interviewers will all submit their feedback and grade your answers to their questions. This feedback is then reviewed by a hiring committee, along with your resume, internal referrals, and any past work you have submitted.

At this stage, the hiring committee makes a recommendation on whether Google should hire you or not. That recommendation is reviewed and validated by a Senior manager before your candidate packet is sent to a compensation committee which will decide how much money you are offered. Finally, a Senior Google executive reviews a summary of your candidacy and compensation before the offer is sent to you.

As you've probably gathered by now, Google goes to great lengths to avoid hiring the wrong candidates. This hiring process with multiple levels of validations helps them scale their teams while maintaining a high caliber of employees. But it also means that the typical process lasts four to eight weeks and sometimes much more.

1.3 How many PMs does Google hire every year?

At this point you might be wondering what your chances are. The good news is that Google is growing quickly and needs an increasing number of engineers and PMs every year.

Cheat Sheet For Interview Questions

We estimate that the number of PMs at Google grew from about 800 to 5,000 between 2007 and the end of 2018. At the time of writing this article Google hires about 500 to 800 new PMs per year.

Here are the steps we took to get to these estimates if you are interested in more details:

Number of employees: Google reports their number of employees every year in their annual report.
Number of engineers: At the time of writing, 40% of job ads for Google are for engineering positions. For each year we therefore multiplied the number of employees by 40% to get to the number of engineers.
Number of PMs: The typical ratio of PMs to Engineers at tech companies is between one to eight and one to ten. We've assumed one to eight here to convert the number of engineers into a number of PMs.

Note: the total number of employees at Google decreased between 2012 and 2013 which explains the dip you can see in the number of PMs at the company for these years.

Google needs more and more PMs every year which might lead you to believe that getting hired isn't that hard. But this actually isn't the case. Google hires less than 1% of applicants and is therefore one of the toughest employers to break into in the world. (Interestingly, this number grows to 5% if you are referred by a current employee.)

However, the good news is that cracking PM interviews is actually really manageable once you know what to prepare for. So let's take a look at the different types of questions Google will ask you.

2. Example questions ↑

The main difficulty with PM interviews at Google is that you will be asked a wide range of questions. We've grouped them in six buckets and analyzed how frequently they were asked by Google using questions reported by former candidates on Glassdoor.com.

Here are the results:

Design questions (32%)
Strategy questions (18%)
Estimation questions (15%)
Behavioral questions (14%)
Technical questions (13%)
Data analysis questions (8%)

Let's step through each type of question, take a look at a few examples, and briefly discuss why Google asks these questions.

2.1 Design questions (32%)

One of the PM's core tasks is to help design new product features and improve existing ones. It's therefore not surprising that design questions make up about a third of the questions Google interviewers ask.

These questions assess your customer empathy, creativity, and ability to use a structured approach to design products. Here are a few questions Google has asked in the past.

For more information, check our articles on how to answer product design questions, product improvement questions and the favorite product question in PM interviews.

Example design questions asked by Google

What's a product you love / hate and why? How would you improve it?
How would you improve [Chrome / GMap / Android / etc]?
How would you improve [Dropbox / Netflix / Facebook / etc]?
How would you design X product for Y people? (e.g. a phone for deaf people)

Exercise: Pick one of the questions above and answer it in the comments section below, without looking at other people's answers. This is a great opportunity to gain some practice for your PM interviews.

2.2 Strategy questions (18%)

PMs are responsible for setting the product vision and the roadmap to deliver it. In other words, they're in charge of product strategy. In your interviews you'll therefore be given strategic questions to discuss with your interviewer.

Interview Cheat Sheet For Managers

These questions assess if you're comfortable thinking about the wide range of aspects good PMs need to take into account when making product decisions. This includes competition, pricing, marketing, time to market, etc.

Thinking through all these aspects requires creativity and a structured approach. For more information, check out our article on how to answer strategy interview questions.

Example strategy questions asked by Google

How would you solve homelessness in downtown San Francisco?
Why does Starbucks sometimes have coffee shops on both sides of the road?
Google has invented a technology that makes air travel 4x cheaper and 4x faster. What do you do with it?
You are the CEO of company X. What new products would you launch and why?
Tell me about a competitive move by a company in the past six months and what you think about it

2.3 Estimation questions (15%)

Making product decisions often requires estimating market sizes, revenue potential, number of customers, etc. Estimation questions test your ability to work with numbers and to break down problems.

In estimation questions, interviewers don't care so much about whether you get to the right number or not. What they are really interested in is how you think through the problem and how comfortable you are making assumptions and simple calculations.

For more information, check our article on how to answer estimation questions in PM interviews.

Example estimation questions asked by Google

How much money is spent on gas in the US every year?
What is the market size for driverless cars in 2025?
How much storage space is required for all the images in Google Street view?
How much does it cost to run Youtube for a day? How much revenue does it make in a day?
What Internet bandwidth is required for an average US college campus?

2.4 Behavioral questions (14%)

As in most interview processes you'll also need to answer behavioral interview questions. These questions tend to fall into three categories:

your motivation to work at Google and as a PM
your past experiences, mainly around managing conflict and working with a diverse group of stakeholders
your understanding of what good PMs do and don't do

These questions aren't particularly hard compared to some of the other ones we are listing in this article and are sometimes overlooked by candidates. So, it's worth spending some time to prepare answers for them to build a small edge against other applicants. For more information, check out our article on how to answer behavioral interview questions and the 'Why google?' question.

Example behavioral questions asked by Google

Why Google?
Why this PM position?
Tell me about a time you demonstrated leadership / solved a difficult team conflict / cracked a tough problem / etc.
What's a good PM? A bad PM?
How do you make product decisions? How do you run your product lifecycle?

2.5 Technical questions (13%)

Google was founded by PhD students and has retained a tradition of hiring particularly technical candidates. This applies to product management too, and Google PMs tend to be more technical than average.

As a consequence, you'll typically need to answer one or two technical questions during your interview process. As you can see below these questions don't tend to include coding or pseudo-coding. They are centered on whether or not you understand certain technical concepts and can explain them simply.

For more information, check out our article on how to answer technical interview questions.

Example technical questions asked by Google

Explain the concept of 'protocol' to a four-year-old child using an 'ice cream store' as an analogy
Explain the concept of 'recursion' to my grandma
Describe a typical page load time distribution on desktop? What about on mobile?
Design a simple load balancer for Google.com. What data structures would you use?
How would you write an algorithm to do X?

2.6 Data analysis questions (8%)

Finally, each Google product has a set of hero and secondary metrics which are used by PMs to assess if their product is successful and to decide what their team should work on next. Your interviewers will therefore ask you one or two questions about what metrics you would track for a given situation, or how you would investigate the changes in a given metric. If you already know what product team you'll interviewing for, it's worth thinking about these metrics in advance.

For more information, check out our article on how to answer metric interview questions.

Example data analytics questions asked by Google

How would you measure the success of Apple's WWDC event?
What are things Netflix should measure and analyze on a daily basis?
YouTube traffic went down 5% yesterday. How would you report this issue to Larry Page?
You are the PM for YouTube analytics. What are your three most important metrics?
You launch a new feed algorithm for Facebook and the average time per session goes down by 20%. What do you do?

3. Preparation tips ↑

Now that you know what questions to expect, let's focus on how to prepare. Here are the five most important things you can do to ace your Google product manager interviews.

3.1 Deep dive into the product / organization

As you've probably figured out from the example questions listed above, you can't become a PM at Google without being familiar with Google's products and its organization. You'll therefore need to do some homework before your interviews.

Here are some resources to help you get started with this:

Alphabet annual reports and strategy presentations (by Alphabet)
Google strategy teardown (by CB Insights)
Google org culture analysis (by Panmore Institute)

3.2 Brush up on product fundamentals

If you're already an experienced PM then this step doesn't apply to you. But if you're more junior or if you're trying to break into product management then it's worth spending some time on refreshing your memory about basic product management concepts.

Here is a list of free resources to give you a starting point:

Popular PM interview books reviewed (by IGotAnOffer)
Digital Product Management (by the University of Boston - free to audit)
Product Management Guides (by Aha.io)
Product Design (by Udacity)
What distinguishes the top 1% of product managers from the top 10%? (by Ian McAllister on quora)
Product vs. Feature Teams (by Silicon Valley Product Group)
What's something product managers know that others don't? (by Dan Schmidt on quora)
Product Requirements Document Example (by Product Hunt)
Data-Driven Product Management: Choosing the Right Metrics for Your Product (by productcoalition.com)
How Should Product Managers Say No? (by productcoalition.com)

3.3 Learn a consistent method for answering PM interview questions

As mentioned previously, Google will ask you questions that fall into certain categories: design, strategy, estimation, behavioral, technical, and data analysis. Approaching each question with a predefined method will enable you to build strong interview habits.

Then, when it comes time for your interviews, these habits will reduce your stress and help you to make a great impression. Here is a list of our free guides on different types of PM interview questions to help you prepare:

Prioritization questions (by Product Manager HQ)

BUT, having a method for solving PM interview questions isn’t enough by itself. You also need to be able to communicate your answers clearly, under the pressure of interview conditions. That’s where practice comes into play.

3.4 Practice by yourself or with peers

In our experience, practicing by yourself is a great way to prepare for PM interviews. You can ask and answer questions out loud, to help you get a feel for the different types of PM interview questions. Practicing by yourself will help you perfect your step-by-step approach for each question type. It also gives you time to correct your early mistakes.

If you have friends or peers who can do mock interviews with you, that's a great option too. This can be especially helpful if your friend has experience with PM interviews, or is at least familiar with the process. You can also find peers to practice with on our new PM mock interview platform.

3.5 Practice with experienced PM interviewers

Finally, you should also try to practice with experienced PM interviewers as they’ll be able to give you much more accurate feedback than friends and peers. If you know a Product Manager who can help you, that's fantastic! But for most of us, it's tough to find the right connections to make this happen. And it might also be difficult to practice multiple hours with that person unless you know them really well.

Here's the good news. We've already made the connections for you. We’ve created a coaching service where you can practice 1-on-1 with ex-interviewers from leading tech companies like Google. Learn more and start scheduling sessions today.

PM Interview Coaching

Any questions about Google PM interviews?

If you have any questions about Google PM interviews, do not hesitate to ask them below and we will be more than happy to answer them. All questions are good questions, so go ahead!

Keep reading:product manager interview articles